--- title: Church of Scientology: What TIME Wrote About It in 1952 description: The Church of Scientology was officially formed on Feb. 18, 1954 canonical: https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-18T12:00:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T04:23:19.644Z article:section: History og:title: Church of Scientology: What TIME Wrote About It in 1952 og:description: The Church of Scientology was officially formed on Feb. 18, 1954 og:url: https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbee6a985c2eb1ebd/69877f0f06f2c11f3a333f20/hubbard.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: L Ron Hubbard og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Church of Scientology: What TIME Wrote About It in 1952 twitter:description: The Church of Scientology was officially formed on Feb. 18, 1954 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbee6a985c2eb1ebd/69877f0f06f2c11f3a333f20/hubbard.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Scientology Got Its Start  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 18, 2015 12:00 PM UTC  L Ron Hubbard in 1959 L Ron Hubbard in 1959Chris Ware—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 18, 2015 12:00 PM UTC Though the Church of Scientology was established on this day — Feb. 18 — in 1954, the idea came to L. Ron Hubbard a few years earlier when, [according to](http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-founder/who-was-lronhubbard.html) Scientology’s official website, “with further investigation through late 1951 and 1952, Ron indeed contacted, measured and provided a means to experience the human soul.” It was around that time that those investigations drew the attention of TIME, which first explained Scientology in the Dec. 22, 1952, issue. By that point, Hubbard was already known to readers as an author, especially of _Dianetics;_ he had recently left his eponymous Dianetic foundation to work on Scientology. The TIME story was fairly dismissive of his new idea — he had “whipped up the bastard word Scientology,” it reported — but still took the time to explain how it worked: --- > “” --- And, no matter how TIME addressed the idea, Scientology was already gaining adherents. Scientology clubs were becoming popular, the article noted: “Needed for a club’s start: a collection of Hubbard’s books ($2 to $5) and an E-meter ($98.50 at Hubbard’s Phoenix headquarters).” **_Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Remember Venus?](http://time.com/vault/issue/1952-12-22/page/36/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/"},"headline":"How Scientology Got Its Start","datePublished":"2015-02-18T12:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T04:23:19.644Z","description":"The Church of Scientology was officially formed on Feb. 18, 1954","url":"https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/","keywords":["faith"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbee6a985c2eb1ebd/69877f0f06f2c11f3a333f20/hubbard.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbee6a985c2eb1ebd/69877f0f06f2c11f3a333f20/hubbard.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"L Ron Hubbard","caption":"L Ron Hubbard","creditText":"Chris Ware—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/faith/","name":"faith"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3707645/scientology-1952/","name":"How Scientology Got Its Start"}}]}] ```